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Their View: Many eyes make democracy work

By Gwyneth Doland / For the Sun-News

Posted:
03/12/2013 01:21:02 AM MDT

A few weeks ago I was picked up at the Nashville airport by a cheery taxi driver who, it turned out, was originally from Somalia. He fled his native country as it was being torn apart by a bitter and violent civil war, he told me, and escaped with family first to Nairobi, then to Damascus. (We marveled aloud at the irony of Syria, so convulsed with violence now, had then been his secure oasis.)

I asked if he missed Somalia and he said he missed his family and the life they had but he didn't miss living in a country where the government failed to provide even the most basic services and the people were left to fend for themselves amid warring factions.

Steering his minivan toward downtown Nashville with one hand, he gestured with the other at the smooth, wet pavement, then a glowing stoplight, saying: Look at all this! Here your streets are paved, the lights are on, people can work and businesses can grow! In Somalia everyone was corrupt. The government took everybody's money but they never gave it back; people stole the money at every level, so the streets were never paved, the stoplights never on.

Everybody complains about the government here, he said, laughing, mystified. But they don't know what it's like.

I laughed with him and then thanked him for reminding me to be grateful for the relative peace and prosperity we have.

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Everyone loves to point fingers — I more than many — at all the things that are unjust, unfair, corrupt or just imperfect. But this happy Tennessean reminded me to be thankful for all we have gained from two centuries of protesting, complaining (and lobbying).

You know, this is kind of what I do for a living, I told the driver. I work to make sure that people can look in the government's books and go to meetings where big decisions are made. I help people keep an eye on what's going on so that we know the system is working right. And yes, we find problems, but with the help of great newspapers, TV and radio, we bring those problems to light and try to get them fixed.

Because yes, our streets are (mostly) paved and our stoplights (mostly) work, but it's only because there are people who check to make sure that the money the government said it was going to spend on roads and lights is really spent on roads and lights. Because we have the right to see the budget, the RFPs from the paving companies and the receipts for the light poles — even the emails between the public officials and the contractors.

Some try to paint this vigilance as intrusive, a hassle or unnecessary. But asking to see the records or watch the meetings doesn't mean you're accusing someone of wrongdoing. It means you want to go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that the right thing has been done.

I slept better that night, even in a strange hotel room, grateful for the many eyes that keep our towns, our state and the country moving slowly but surely in the right direction.

Gwyneth Doland is the executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, www.nmfog.org. NMFOG's toll-free hotline is (888) 843-9121. Join us in a nationwide discussion about the importance of access to public information and what it means for you and your community. Sunshine Week is March 10-16.

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